♪♪ -♪ Maíz ♪ ♪ Dulce maíz ♪ ♪ Abundado ♪ ♪ Listo pa' la tierra cultivar ♪ ♪ Maíz ♪ ♪ Dulce raíz ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -The friendships that I've cultivated over the past decade, they've really seen me kind of transform from this somewhat insecure new adult into, like, a young entrepreneur.

You want to think about, "What am I actually doing that can, like, maybe make it a little bit easier for someone in the future?"

You know, it's not all roses and sunshine, but I think if you can approach it from a supportive culture, you're not going to be alone in approaching all of these circumstances that you may not know how to deal with exactly.

♪♪ -So, let's, like, become familiar with the layout of this bed.

We're gonna have three tomatoes growing here.

And in these four squares right here, we're gonna seed this green basil from Iran.

-Our community garden is a project that I started the conversation with Anamaria.

She is this very dynamic person who, at her core, understands and aligns with the ethos of Nixta, which is the idea that we're in this space for a period that is not going to be forever.

So what is our role in utilizing the space in many different functions?

-Okay, so we did Basil on these four, and we're gonna do marigolds on this one, this one, this one, and this one.

-And working with the Sustainable Food Center, we would be given these boxes of vegetables, and we were trying to distribute them to our neighbors who live in Section 8 housing.

Often they don't have anything more than a microwave, so in developing the program, we were thinking of, "How do we grow things that they can actually use and things that we can use for the restaurant?"

Anamaria came up with a crop plan.

There are multiple beds that have a variety of different herbs from Iran, from Mexico, from the U.S.

There's Cherokee tomatoes in there, there's habanadas, there's radishes, there's hickory turnips.

-Any chef's dream is to be able to go into their backyard and pluck a vegetable and throw it down.

-It's cool.

You just point to it.

"Oh, do you see these -- you know, this Persian basil?

It came from that garden over there.

Go check it out after -- You know, after you're done eating.

And I think it really just bolsters what our beliefs in food are with those interactions with guests.

It's very, very satisfying going in there and pulling something out and being like, "Oh, my gosh!

It started from just this teeny tiny seed."

And I think that is the story of Nixta.

It's going to nourish so many people.

-I know.

It's gonna be lovely.

So, yeah, this bed, we have tomatoes.

♪♪ -The Taco Mafia is unique.

Like, our bond is very unique.

You don't really see it in a lot of other cities.

You know, historically, that creates competition between businesses.

What I was thinking is, throw the belly on the top right here... -Sure.

-...and then we'll put a hotel pan, have that indirect.

We're pushing each other to do better.

We're pushing each other to succeed and reach new levels, not only with business but with, like, community work, as well.

We're gonna go inside and get the pork belly prepped up.

We need to score it, yeah.

Just kind of pushing each other to -- to do better, be better for the community, and offer the same help that we gave each other to anybody that we see fit.

-What do you get the smoker up to?

-Between 200 and 250.

Just real low.

It's just great to see everybody kind of climbing their own ladder side by side and rooting each other on.

It feels good to have that support system.

♪♪ Start searing those.

-I get distracted easy.

I used to work for this chef.

He was just such a jerk.

-Oh, yeah.

A lot of my first jobs were like that.

There's, like, a hierarchy, and they, like, kind of made you earn their respect in a weird way.

I always tell myself, like, if I ever run a place one day, there's not going to be, like, anyone above anyone.

You know, like, even, like, this pop-up, I want you to be able to use this as a vessel to start your own thing someday.

One of the reasons is, like, showcasing your skills, showing you kind of how to operate a day of service on your own with pricing and all that.

Getting your own following, getting your name out there.

Like, when you first came, I told you, like, "I don't want you to just work here.

I want you to learn from it and excel from it, right?"

♪♪ ♪♪ We're gonna start the rice.

Maybe like another couple hours here, if that.

♪♪ -Every time that I go now to Mexico City, it reminds me of the first time that I went.

It's a Mexican version of New York City.

Like, it just doesn't stop.

And it's that big enough to where you go -- Like, you can hit up different spots every time that you go.

There's the one that I always have to make sure to go back to, and that's Tacos Charly.

That's where I was starting to understand how taqueros set up their line and structure their line and serve how they serve.

Just by watching over and over and over again.

And that that place always stood out to me, not only by how good it tasted, by just the flow of everything and how well-structured everything was.

♪♪ -¿Cómo estás?

Bien.

Gracias, gracias.

Me voy a llevar -- Dame dos de suadero.

Eh... Y unos dos de cabeza.

-¿Dos de?

-Cabeza, por favor.

I wanted to show and educate people of how a Mexico City street taco is.

The suadero taco is the taco of Mexico City.

People generally, primarily think it's pastor.

Pastor is right there, but the 100% Chilango taco is suadero.

A suadero is a special cut from the cow, from part of the brisket, that has connective tissue, protein, and fat.

And going to Tacos Charly for the first time, out the gate, I saw that they had thicker pieces of cut.

They have two churriceras going at the same time.

They're both filled with briskets.

When I saw them doing that, I was like, "All right, then I can use that because, you know, we're in Texas -- we got a bunch of brisket."

But we still confit it the same way.

With wanting to bring Mexico City style to Texas, I wanted to try and bring it as much as close as possible from Mexico City to what we're doing here, because it is the importance for us as a cook to take somebody back or give them that comfort that they felt whenever they were sick or whenever they were really happy from winning a game or whatever, so forth.

Aunque no sepan, entre tú y Mauricio, me enseñaron mucho -- cómo preparan la carne y todo eso.

They definitely were and are still the most influential taquería for us in Mexico City.

After the trip from Mexico City, that's when I found out I had to have the open-chest heart surgery.

I was expecting, from based off my previous family's experiences with the surgery, a couple of months and I should be back.

♪♪ -What you want me on?

-Uh... Do you want to sear these off?

-Sure.

-I need a really, like, hard, hard sear on each side.

Just -- Just a quick -- Just -- Just do something.

♪♪ [ Laughs ] -You're talking like this, right?

-Beautiful.

Beautiful.

-Yeah, a lot of people forget that, like, not everybody has the same access to a lot of the things that -- Like, for example, being an immigrant, you don't have enough access, like financial access, to a lot of things.

You know, you're not supported by the government as much as a person from here.

So when you want something, you have to actually build it.

-I don't know.

I might have 200.

-We sell out, we sell out.

It's all good.

This is a trial today.

-You're gonna depend on you and the people that are actually working with you.

-We need to figure out what we're doing with this.

-You're trying to keep them warm, stick it on there.

-They got too crisp.

-Okay.

-¿Por qué no las pones --?

No, se van a aguadar, ¿verdad?

-Watching Eddie start from the beginning, and Beto starting on that small, tiny truck, dude, like, that was unbelievable.

For me to actually meet these people and see how they started and how -- like, all the work they put in and it actually pays off at the end.

I remember how uncertain it was.

I remember how much I had to wait, how many hours I had to put.

I feel way more because I saw all the work that got put into it.

It's, like, fulfilling.

You earn everything that you got.

-How you doing?

-Good.

-Good.

You here for the pop-up?

-Yeah.

-Awesome.

♪♪ Yo, we got something really special in the works right now.

-When I found out the news that I needed to have surgery right away, I started to organize all these things so that way Jose can hone in on them and learn them as quick as possible.

So that way, while I'm out, you know, the company can can keep running.

-It was hard for me to see my friend like that.

And then it was also hard for me to wonder, like, how am I going to continue doing this without him?

-Oh, did you see the...

The big question about the -- the payout?

-Yeah.

Yeah, that definitely explained everything.

-'Cause at the time I was preparing, like, leaving notes, starting to actually write out certain things that I normally wouldn't write out.

Did he clean the whole case yesterday?

The only thing that I was afraid for was making sure that I had enough time to do enough to make sure that Emilia's future would be would be secure later on down the road.

Not just financial but by relationships that I had created.

Everything that I've been doing and continue to do from this point forward is to leave everybody else around me set up.

-He was out for like six months.

Even after the surgery, he still needed a few months to recover from it, and it was -- it was pretty rough.

♪♪ ♪♪ -That's it, right?

-Yo.

-Can you grab the green extension cord from the front?

-Yeah.

-For the cameras?

And just walking was out of the question.

Like, I couldn't -- I couldn't get up.

I couldn't do any upper-body movement just to -- You know, 'cause, like, literally, the scar's about this long.

So it'll crack like -- you can't move your shoulders because, you know, you can hurt something or damage anything.

But me being able to have that opportunity at the time to be able to, you know, bring myself back up to life was, you know, my family, Joanna, my friends, Jose, the whole team.

They did what they had to do to for me in order to be able to come back.

Cake, cake.

Go with Sofia and Anand.

Go on.

I didn't have health insurance, so I had told, you know, the Mafia and everybody, like, I let them know, like, "Hey, probably not gonna see me for a minute.

I have to have this surgery."

They asked me, like, "Do you need anything?"

I was like, "No, no, I'm just -- right now, I'm just trying to focus on getting some coverage so I can get the surgery done as soon as possible."

That's whenever they had, you know, surprised me with -- They created a GoFundMe account and created some shirts to sell.

That really, really caught me by surprise because I wasn't expecting none of that at all.

-Beto is a very private person.

He doesn't like to overburden his friends or his family with certain things that are going on.

When we found out that he had to have surgery on his heart, we, I believe, got a word from Pizza Tony, from Side Eye Pie.

♪♪ -Name's Tony Curet.

I'm chef-owner-operator of Side Eye Pie.

So, Carlos, we started early already, but we have a good amount of prep done already.

Mushrooms are all cooked off.

Bell peppers are cooked off.

Edgar and I have known each other since, like, day one of culinary school.

We started at the same time.

We were basically in the same group, and we had the same group of friends.

He was in L.A.

I was kind of traveling, working as chefs, and then we kind of met back up here in Austin.

During the pandemic, he was like, "I know a guy that knows trailers."

I'm like, "Oh, yeah?

Who's that?"

"Tony.

Me, Tony."

Tony from Discada introduced me to his network, and he was there almost every day helping us out.

I opened up Doughboys.

We built that trailer in two months.

Tony introduced us to Beto.

Beto introduced us to our old landlord.

We moved into Arbor Food Park month and a half later.

Being able to be on Dozen Street, on 12 Street, with the greats of Cuantos Tacos to Discada a half a block away to Nixta right around the corner, it was so cool being next to those guys.

They were pushing me.

We were always doing collabs.

Our friendship has grown into, like, a brotherhood.

They really do push me to be the best I can be as a chef.

I feel like I'm on, like, a fighter plane, you know?

Where it's like -- shows you like your sight?

You know?

I can't -- It gets in my way a lot, you know?

You know, Beto went through his whole transformation, his whole surgery.

I was at Arbor Food Park at that time, and my business partner, Max and I, we had a conversation.

We were like, "Hey, man, we got to do something.

What are we going to do?

We're small businesses, so we can't really just like donate up-front money."

So we were like, "Let's sell some shirts."

I called Edgar that night, and, you know, "What do you guys want to do?"

So we put a little "We Heart Beto" shirt, you know, Beto in there, and then "Rolling with the homies" -- you know, taco and a pizza hugging each other.

I think we sold out in, like, 15 minutes.

And all the proceeds went to Beto and his family, and it was pretty cool to be a part of that.

Hey.

What's good?

-Tony!

-Nice to see you, man.

I know, seriously.

-After that, right?

No, seriously, come on up.

-What's up?

-How are you?

-Seeing you for the first time, it's amazing.

-I know.

-It's not just the surgery that's expensive.

It's rehab.

It's the time spent away.

We made a little over $7,000 from the GoFundMe.

And then there were some additional funds from the T-shirt fund, as well.

That was really for him and his daughter and his family to have a little bit of relief.

He's someone that we'll want to take care of forever.

He's so, so, so selfless, and it was the least that we can do.

-It only made sense for us to have his back like he had our back.

A person like him that, at this point, was family to us.

You know, we wanted him to feel like that, and we wanted him to know that he had the support of not only us, but there was a community behind him that really supported him.

-Fermin had reached out to invite me to do a kitchen takeover to help raise funds for the surgery.

-The first Tuesday of every month at Suerte, we host a taquero takeover, which we invite a chef that is a friend of ours to come and do a taco for that night.

We do it in our tortillas that we do at Suerte, and the proceeds of that taco go to a charity of the chef's choice or something that is happening in our industry that we need help with.

When Beto had heart surgery, we donated the proceeds for that to his GoFundMe, right?

So I think that's something that's -- that's really unique, also, not just to the Taco Mafia but to Austin.

-They had me on, you know, cooking along their team.

And for me -- and Sam was there at the time, as well -- like, it was a very, like, welcoming -- like, welcoming, like, over -- overwhelming, like, over-welcome feeling.

-There was a time where I was planning on doing Discada to come and do a takeover, and Nixta had done one, and Beto from Cuantos had done one.

And then, unfortunately, three weeks before he was going to make the takeover, a car run into their truck.

-¿Vas a querer uno o dos?

-Okay, dos.

-Dos.

Perfecto.

-We used to have a joke, an ongoing joke of, like, he will drive -- He would just try to stress me out, right?

And like drive by the truck or something be like, "Dude, the truck's on fire!"

"Oh, my God, dude, someone wrecked the truck!"

So it was like an ongoing joke.

-It was a joke.

-Or he would get me like, "Dude, someone smashed all the windows."

Like, just adding stress to the day.

That's our humor, though.

Just like snitching on him in high school because we're still children.

Yeah.

Yo, Eddie, just get on that rice.

We got this.

Get one of these and a piece of meat and hand-shred it.

Like, shred it really, really nicely, but just get the meat shredded first.

We'll figure that out in a second.

I was like, "Do you guys need any help with the truck?"

Because, like, I've really been wanting to go to the Greenbelt and, like, we had a full staff that day.

I leave my phone in the car, go hiking, I get back, I have an insane amount of missed calls.

I call Jose back.

I was like, "What's up, man?

You called me so many times."

He's like, "Listen, man, somebody hit the truck.

Hold on, I got to go," and he hangs up, and I go, "What?"

-I stepped out.

I hear this crash, this loud noise.

[ Tires screech ] When I turn around, the car's already on my leg.

I just, like, jumped.

-He's Spider-Man jumped.

-[ Laughs ] -Like his legs are about to get crushed between the truck and our covered patio.

-Like, I just turned around.

I felt some-- I put my hand, like, jumped.

It hits that thing, and I land on the hood.

I get -- like, get off the car, and, like, everyone's like, "Are you okay?"

and I'm like -- I don't know why, but I just kind of, like, started laughing, but, like, nervously laughing.

I'm just like, "Ah, yeah, yeah."

We look at the car, and the guy in the driver's seat, he's passed out.

Turns out that, like, he had a medical condition, diabetes, something with his blood pressure.

-He had zero alcohol in his system.

They tested his eyes.

He was dead sober.

-But, dude, he crashed into us so hard.

-I put the claim in that day, and we were told, "Just don't touch it until we send an adjuster out there."

Well, here's where it gets tricky.

Our food trailer, it's a licensed trailer with a VIN number.

So when insurance sees that on paper, it's a wreck between two cars, even though, over and over again, we made it explicitly clear this is a business.

It's all good.

That's how you learn, baby.

This is how you learn.

Ain't nobody starting in trucks nails it first try, you know?

A whole, like, week goes by.

-There's literally food rotting... -Rotting.

-...on the sidewalk.

-We can't even open the door.

They said that it should have taken them less than a week, tops, to send someone out.

It took 42 days.

All of our employees, meanwhile, we continued paying them 40 hours per week at their rate.

We were just losing a lot of money.

Before we even had a final number of what they could give us, another month went by.

We have to get something going, so out of our own pocket, we pay someone to start repairs on our trailer.

This ended up going on for a total of 89 days before we were able to reopen.

Behind you.

35, 36?

It would have definitely taken a lot longer than 90 days to reopen, I'll tell you that.

But all this love and support reaching out to us while we're in very uncertain times, and the community definitely showed out for us in a major way.

All right.

Hey, clear, boy.

-Clear board.

-Clear board.

-[ Mock cries ] -Let's go cry.

-[ Laughs ] -38, 39?

Got you right here, boss.

I'll be right back with you.

-We got on the ringer with Beto and started just kind of brainstorming, like, "What can we do?

How can we help?"

You know, they are our brothers.

They are our family.

-We mobilized again and did another fundraiser.

-A lot of figureheads in town, in the restaurant industry reached out to us.

Suerte did a taquero takeover.

-Ever since I've known Jose, I -- He's like a little brother, not by age but like that -- that little like back and forth, like, you know?

I call him, I was like, "Hey, we'll do the proceeds that come from this taco to y'all, and because people are going to miss it, like, you can make the Discada taco here."

-All right.

Jose, Clark, Anthony, getting the Discada ready at Suerte.

-He let us keep all the sales from the Discada, which was another few grand.

It was great.

-I think we actually did a special at Nixta.

-'Cause they had a bunch prepped out ready for the week.

So we ran like a week's worth of, like, Discada specials.

So it was kind of fun to get to see, like, a Discada torta or, like, a Discada enchilada or, like, a Discada pizza with the tlayuda.

So we told them, we're like, "Any sales we'll make on this, we'll just kick back to y'all."

I don't know.

We just went all out.

-We ended up getting more money from the fundraisers.

The whole community came together and raised us a little over $30,000.

And that's that's the power of people right there.

-We sold out.

-We sold out, boy!

Ha ha!

-Dawg, we did it!

-Let's hit that post.

Sold out.

When we reopened, do you remember how busy -- Like, everybody, everyone and their mom showed up.

It actually brought me to tears how many people came.

We felt so much love.

Like, that's that, like, adjusting, rolling with the punches.

Like, we came back stronger.

I think we just solidified our bonds with the community even more and realized, like, that's all we truly have.

And it was just, like, "Of course.

Of course the only people that are truly going to help us are our friends and allies in the community."

Everybody who donated, everyone who showed support, made us even more motivated to take care of everyone here.

-The foundation of all of that, it's the community.

It just takes the right people.

It's just the people on top, they just -- they have to do better.

They just have to do better, man.

It's not like it's not -- you're not able to do it.

It's just -- you're just not doing it.

♪♪ ♪♪ -In this day and age, there are very few organizations, in a professional sense, that you can depend on.

♪♪ For most small businesses, the margin for error is so slim and being able to stay afloat that you have to just mobilize and make something happen.

Otherwise, you know, a business can potentially go under.

And we didn't want to see that for our friends.

It's a double-edged sword.

It's a really beautiful thing that a mass amount of people can mobilize and make something come to fruition.

But why does it have to come to that?

Why are there no safety nets?

Why is there not enough support or resources?

-It's fun starting a business, you know?

And it's it's been fun, but it's also, like, high stress at the same time, and... -Part of the journey.

-Yeah, it is.

-There's never -- -Me too.

I feel like, with all of us, we get to kind of brainstorm and dream and do all that, like, with you, with our job, with Fermin.

And I think we're all at, like, different... -Aspects of our lives.

-Yeah.

Different aspects of our lives, different places.

Like, your transition into Side Eye was, like, a whole thing... -Whole thing.

-You're now, like, having the largest mixer in the world.

[ Laughter ] But, like, I maybe can fit in it.

I don't know.

-Not maybe.

You could definitely.

-Time and time again, this has been the case where we've seen this play out in real life.

It's always been the community and our friends that have been the people that have stepped up to the plate when we needed it most.

-Oh, okay, okay, okay.

-I got some 'za.

-You know what's kind of crazy?

-I just saw the Domino's truck pull up and, like, drop off these pizzas.

-Oh, yeah?

Yeah?

-Yes.

-Yeah, I got the plug on Domino's.

You guys just let me know.

-Is that how you make your pizzas?

-It is.

-We had already gone through a pandemic, so you're sort of conditioned, and you toughen up to know that we all can do something.

-Restaurants are such an important part of a community.

It's the people that are within your neighborhood.

Those are the people that are going to have your back.

Winter Storm Uri was a perfect example of that.

-But, yeah, no, I was thinking about the freeze the other day, especially, like, since we had the scare the other day with that half-inch ice that came through and decimated the whole state.

-That's why we're freaking out.

"Oh, my God.

Here it comes again."

They were like, "It's supposed to be chill for the next, like, 3 to 4 days."

I was like -- [ Gasps ] -I was like, "We need to mobilize again."

For better or for worse, we're all equipped to be able to step in when necessary.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪